Today, I’ll talk about the Withings Business model, in other words we will try to find how Withings makes money, how this organization achieves its revenue objectives, how it sustains itself. The objective here is to understand company’s choices and discuss about the effectiveness of these choice, then we will try to find if another business could be much more valuable. 

In this blog, i’ve chosen to talk about three companies that they don’t seems to have the same business sector at first glance. The first one, asos.com is a British online fashion and beauty store founded on June 2000, the second one, Withings, is a consumer electronics company located in Issy-Les-Moulineaux, France. In one word, Withings try to connect everyday objects with the help of news technologies for an easier use. The third company i would like to talk about, is the famous one around the world, Spotify, a Swedish commercial music streaming, podcast and video that provides digital right management-restricted.

So, here, the question is, how its companies are linked ? 

They have the privilege to share a quasi-constant growth during the 10 last years. There is a lot of reasons of this growth. I think that the first one reason is due to the global increase of the interest for news technologies that these companies trying to use as tools of expansion. But, it’s not enough to create a thriving company. These company selected the right business model at the right time. 

It’s the second most visited site in the clothing world, with about 16 million visitors per month. Websites have become channels of communication for Asos.com, B2C websites provides a satisfying customer experience. 

Asos.com (As Seen On Screen) mainly targets women between 15 and 35 years , followers of fashion dress and celebrity fans. In order to attract new customer, the customer acquisition is done by a strong marketing concept. The website doesn’t a lot of advertising. Asos.com doesn’t use newspapers or TV to communicate. However, the bias of the brand is to use celebrities image. She has occasionally an enormous publicity when one of them chooses to dress with brand clothes. 

Two example : Michele Obama during the re-election of Barack Obama & Taylor Swift on Pinterest.

This kind of marketing is called Viral Marketing : Referring to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networking services and other technologies to try to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses or computer viruses (Internet memes and memetics)

If Asos brand communicates just a little bit through traditional channels, however much it communicates on social networks (as seen above) New collections, photo shoot, promo, look for ideas or news stars, Asos post on social networks are daily (or several times a day). This strategy is modeled on the behavior of the main customer of the brand, a keen customer, and above all : ultra connected (Asos.com being a brand that is exclusively on the web) This is a part of the customer conversion.

Asos has also been awarded in 2011 for "the most appropriate use of social media" by the e-Commerce Awards for Excellence. And, the brand is actually finalist for the best social media e-commerce campaign with ASOS and the Russian Market with Forward3D (link below)

www.forward3d.com/our-experience/case-studies/asos-reaching-a-russian-audience-through-social-media/

And now, what's next for asos.com ?

I think that the brand should continue its location in social medias, but, the brand have also to be preserved of traditional medias. By doing this, Asos cultivates a select image, trending but not like everyone else. Here is the point here. Asos is the second largest clothing website, but, people seems to be unique when they are wearing Asos. The second point is that asos have to be careful about the competitive outsiders like Zalando, TopShop, Forever 21, and H&M. 

Sources :

• Auteur, A. A. (année). Titre du livre (xe éd., vol. x; traduit par A. Traducteur). Lieu de publication : Maison d'édition.
• Ahmed Fatmi, 2010, « Les avantages et les inconvénients du marketing viral », http://contenu-gratuit.com/article3569.html, consulté le 12 décembre 2011
• Lambert Verjus, Président du Comité de Direction de la Direction générale de la Régulation et de l’Organisation du Marché, « La légalité du marketing viral », http://economie.fgov.be/fr/binaries/marketing-viral_brochure_fr_tcm326-36254.pdf
• Jacques Nantel, « Marketing des arts et de la culture et e-commerce – Le marketing viral », http://www.gestiondesarts.com/index.php?id=1660, consulté le 10/12/11.
• Maud Gabrielson, « Asos : la recette d'un succès planétaire » , sur grazia.fr, Grazia,‎ 1er novembre 2014
•  « Asos, la marque anglaise désormais star en France » , sur glamourparis.com, Glamour,‎ 23 août 2010

• Internet Marketing: Integrating Online and Offline Strategies, 3rd Edition Mary-Lou Roberts Retired Professor of Marketing Debra Zahay Northern Illinois University ISBN-10: 1133625908  |  ISBN-13: 9781133625902 2013 - United States of America